New Religion
by GraphiteHeron
Summary: For Riza Hawkeye, Religion doesn't necessarily mean a diety...[oneshot]


**New Religion**

Of all the people in the military, Riza Hawkeye was probably one of the last ones anyone would accuse of bowing to any god or other deity of faith. Her gun was her religion. That, and her loyalty to her superior.

The First Lieutenant spent each day much the same. Wake early, feed the dog, get ready, go to work, clean her gun, do her paperwork, shoot at the Colonel until he did his work, clean her gun, do her own paperwork, shoot at the Colonel again, clean her gun, file everything, go home, take care of the dog, and finally, clean her gun once more before going to bed. Praying didn't have anything to do with her life. Religion had nothing to do with her life.

The only interruptions in her otherwise consistent routine were perhaps errands that Colonel Mustang had her running, or orders from the top. Basically, coffee runs and war were the only changes. And those, well war at any rate, were found to be pretty rare, and Riza found routine comforting. She also found the familiar motions of cleaning her firearms comforting, as hers was basically the only gun set in the whole military that never once jammed. She attributed that to her meticulous and thorough maintenance. The others neglected their guns hideously, and even the military issue rifles jammed! As far as she knew, rifles weren't supposed to jam, but these did…

Thursday found her wandering past the rifle and munitions room on her way back from her coffee run that day. It was the first run of the day, before everyone else was technically supposed to be there. Oh, it was an hour before work started, she had time to clean a few of the rifles, didn't she?

Riza stepped into the rifle room, with every intention of just cleaning one or two of the poor, neglected, malfunctioning rifles before going back to her office. She argued with herself at first, knowing that she really should get a jump start on that paper… Try as she might to fight it, that compulsion persisted, the temptation, just too great. She set her coffee down, knowing that if left unattended, someone would snatch it, but oh well. She took the almost never used gun cleaning kit from a drawer in the rifle room, and pulled the first rifle from its rack, setting it down on the wooden table and seating herself on the bench by the table. She set to carefully dismantling it, cleaning each part lovingly, and reassembling it with the utmost respect, respect that one might even call reverence. Then she stood up, put the rifle on its rack, and turned to leave, but the compulsion persisted. She went to the next rifle, repeated her cleaning ritual, put it away, and decided that she'd done enough for then, as it was really time to get to that paperwork, but she couldn't do it. She just couldn't. She grabbed another rifle.

Six hours later, Riza found herself doing the same task. It was her cycle now, though how she couldn't stop after the last rifle was serviceable was beyond her comprehension, but thinking wasn't important right now. Every time she finished with the last rifle in the room, she started all over again, almost what one might call mindless.

"Ahem," someone coughed. Riza wanted to look up and salute, really she did, but her task was just so engrossing…

_Snap!_

Now, that got her out of her reverie. "Are you cra…" she started to yell, rounding on the Flame Alchemist, her superior, as he smirked and dangled his pyrotechnic gloves in the opposite hand from the one he'd snapped with. Riza saluted guiltily. "Sir! I was just, ah, just making sure that these firearms were in service condition, sir!"

"For thirteen hours, Hawkeye? One would think it a three hour task at most," smirked Mustang, tucking his special gloves into the breast pocket of his military uniform. "And most would stop cleaning after seventy nine trips around the room."

Riza fought her blush furiously, fought to keep her control and composure like a true woman of the military. But it was so hard to remain composed when Colonel Mustang was giving her that look. And when she realized that the rest of her coworkers had been watching her as well. _Oh hell…_

"One hundred and seventy four, actually," corrected Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc. "You missed the first seven hours of her…" _Bang, bang, bang! _Havoc stopped laughing as three bullets whizzed past his ear. Obviously, Lieutenant Hawkeye was not so amused.

As if it wasn't bad enough as was, Riza noted that the other Lieutenant, that annoying Havoc, had stolen her coffee. After another quick salute to Mustang, she was off like a rocket, chasing a laughing Jean Havoc all over the matrix of office buildings with the fervor of a religious fanatic whose faith had just been insulted.


End file.
